The PC (Personal Computer) is a highly configurable and upgradable gaming platform that, among home systems, sports the widest variety of control methods, largest library of games, and cutting edge graphics and sound capabilities.

Which is better, is really a matter of opinion. The fastest 7970 is faster than the fastest 680, but the 680 offers PhysX in a few games, and lower power consumption. The 7970 offers AMD's new TressFX in Tomb Raider, as an answer to nVidia's PhysX.

For CPUs, right now intel's Ivy Bridge has a definite lead when it comes to games. the i5 3570k is about $220, and runs almost anything, especially when its overclocked. The i7 3770k offers almost the same clock speed, but with hyperthreading, for an extra $100. Most of its added benefits don't do much for gaming performance, though.

Haswell, intel's next generation, arrives in June, with about 10-15% better performance over the current Ivy Bridge chips.

I'd say right now your best bang for your money is a 7970 with an i5 3570k.

Ugh, people still like to brag about their start up time? Ditch the SSD and save your money.

Load times are so much better, totally worth it. Games that stream assets are also much better (Witcher 2, ArmA 3, Any UE3 game). That said, you should go with a larger SSD. That's much too small for a game library.

I can appreciate futureproofing. But in the future, rather than buying a $900 Titan, consider a different approach to futureproofing:

Buy a $450 video card.

Hide the remaining $450 in a safe place that no one will touch, like a box of fat-free cookies.

In about a year in a half, when the deficiencies in the current $450 card start to become noticeable, buy another $450 card.

That future $450 card will be a lot better than a Titan.

But I'm in a very poor position to lecture others on possibly-excessive spending.

You'd have to wait a good long while for it to be "a lot better" than a Titan, especially if you make use of the amount of VRAM that beast has.

I also don't freaking understand why people tell people who can afford to spend that much on a video card that they should be more careful with their money. If you can afford to spend $1000 on a video card, you'll be fine doing so and super happy to have it.